Excellent question earlier this week. Great opportunity to slay a few sacred cows. QUESTION Hi, one of the requirements for the work visa application is a proof of genuine vacancy. What if a sponsoring company doesn’t do job ads? What can he present? He does recruit locally via his network since he is just a […]

Not every stint for work or business means full time residency in Hong Kong so what to do about ‘half-timers’? QUESTION I am pursuing options to take up employment in Hong Kong and would like to know if there is any residence requirement for retention of a work visa. For example, how long can one […]

First Published August 22, 2013 Which type of Hong Kong visa has been most in demand in the last 20 years and how easy has it been to get approval for this visa type? On June 6th, 2013 I was interviewed by five law students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong about my experiences […]

First Published July 24, 2013 On June 6th, 2013 I was interviewed by five law students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong about my experiences practicing immigration here over the last 20 years. We covered a great deal of ground in the 90 minutes we spent together and over the next few weeks I […]

Contact Hong Kong Immigration and make your visa expire? This question comes up often enough for it to warrant another explanation of the arrangements which prevail (current ImmD practice)… QUESTION Dear Visa Geeza, I’m under the impression that when you leave a company that has been sponsoring your employment visa or if you are fired, […]

First published March 6, 2019 and updated May 8, 2019. UPDATE: 8.5.2019 – ImmD are now routinely 2-3 weeks behind their normal case consideration time frames, even as late as May with the Summer Rush just around the corner to boot. This is borne out by our own dealings with ImmD day-to-day and also the […]

First Published June 3, 2012 Migration demographic analyses first came into play in 1885 in the Journal of the Statistical Society when geographer Ernest George Ravenstein essayed what he termed the “Laws of Migration” seeking to set out an explanation for and attempting to predict migration patterns in England. In his seminal paper, Ravenstein compared […]

Applying for a Hong Kong Employment Visa? You’ve been offered a job in Hong Kong and you need an employment visa. But your new employer has no experience about the process, so what do you need to tell them? 1. Firstly, there’s the approvability test – namely – you need to possess special skills, knowledge […]

It sometimes happens that 2 job offers emerge in quick succession and you prefer to accept the 2nd one but the visa application for the first one has already started. So what happens in a situation like this? QUESTION I am currently in Hong Kong and about to sign a contract with a company who […]

The question of criminal records and how they impact on Hong Kong visa applications keeps cropping up… QUESTION Hi, I have previously lived in Hong Kong, once as a student so obviously held a student visa and then a couple of years later working there so had an employment visa. I’m a Canadian citizen and […]